How 4 of Trump’s policy actions could impact higher education in 2025

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Deep Dive How 4 of Trump’s policy actions could impact higher education in 2025

The new administration has undertaken a flurry of executive actions during its first two weeks that could bring major changes to the sector.

Published Jan. 31, 2025 By Natalie Schwartz , Laura Spitalniak , and Ben Unglesbee Donald Trump sits at his desk in the Oval Office with his hands clasped.

Donald Trump sits at his desk in the Oval Office with his hands clasped.

President Donald Trump talks to reporters in the Oval Office after signing an executive order on Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

The opening days of President Donald Trump’s second term have been marked by an executive order blitz. Trump has signed over three dozen executive orders — and counting — in less than two weeks.

Those directives aim to carry out many of Trump’s campaign promises, including tightening immigration, cracking down on student protests, and stamping out diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Many of his early orders could have far-reaching impacts for colleges and universities, which have found themselves navigating mandates that are often unclear in their scope.

Below, we’re rounding up four of Trump’s early executive actions and how they could affect the higher education sector in the year ahead.

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Trump signed an executive order Wednesday aiming to crack down on antisemitism, particularly at colleges and universities. The directive orders all federal agencies to identify measures they can take to curb antisemitism within 60 days, citing an "unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence."

The executive order cites a Republican-led House report issued late last year that accused colleges of failing to protect students against antisemitism and making “shocking concessions” to protesters who set up encampments. The report called for more federal oversight of colleges.

In a fact sheet accompanying the executive order, Trump pledged to deport noncitizen students who are “Hamas sympathizers.”

"To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you," the fact sheet stated.

However, free speech scholars and civil rights groups raised concerns about the executive order, arguing that it conflates criticism against Israel with antisemitism and that deporting noncitizens over political speech would be unconstitutional, Reuters reported.

The order directs the attorney general to list and analyze lawsuits against and involving colleges that allege civil rights violations over antisemitism in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023, the day that Hamas attacked Israel.

It also orders the education secretary to report all Title VI complaints against education institutions involving antisemitism, including those that have been resolved. Title VI bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin.

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Less than two weeks into his term, Trump has taken action on immigration that could impact campus communities and operations, and there’s likely more to come.

The day after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, his administration issued a directive opening up colleges — along with other “sensitive” areas such as K-12 schools, hospitals and churches — to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection agents. The move overturned a Biden-era practice of avoiding those institutions as much as possible.

On Jan. 29, Trump signed the first bill of his second term into law, the Laken Riley Act. The law requires federal enforcers to detain any undocumented migrants accused of certain crimes, including shoplifting and theft. Critics of the legislation argue that it eliminates due process protections for those it targets.

In response to immigration enforcement actions from the executive branch, colleges may have little legal choice but to cooperate.

“Nobody wants to hear this, but if a federal agency comes to your campus with a warrant or a subpoena, you do not have a special right to refuse that because you do not believe to be morally valid,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education.

“We have to comply with federal and state laws, and the repercussions for your campus if you do not are significant,” Fansmith added, speaking at the Council for Higher Education Accreditation annual conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

At the same time, colleges are under no legal obligation to provide authorities with the names of undocumented students, Luis Maldonado, American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ vice president of government relations and policy analysis, told attendees at the CHEA event. “They do not have to collect that information. Many institutions choose not to.”

Beside potential disruption to campuses and harm to migrant students, Trump administration actions could pose challenges for recruiting and enrolling international students.

During his first term, Trump issued an executive order barring entry for those from several Muslim-majority countries — widely referred to as a “Muslim ban”— that resulted in some international students being stranded outside the U.S. His administration also tightened restrictions on visas for highly skilled workers and moved to deport international students who were enrolled only in online classes during the coronavirus pandemic — a policy that his administration reversed after backlash.

On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump supported another, and stronger, travel ban.

ACE’s Fansmith noted that even without new laws or major policy changes, the Trump administration could erect logistical hurdles to acquiring visas by requiring protracted vetting and extending timelines. In addition, rhetoric and general posturing around immigration could impact enrollment if international students feel unwanted.

“You'll look at the countries that are welcoming your participation, that encourage your abilities to be part of the research system, and you will seek out a place that is welcoming and comforting to you,” Fansmith said.

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Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, especially those at colleges, have faced an onslaught of conservative-led legislative and policy attacks in recent years.

In 2025, that challenge is poised to gain strength with Trump back in the White House.

On the first full day of his second term, Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to “combat illegal private sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, and activities,” labeling diversity initiatives, including those at colleges, as potential violations of civil rights laws.

The order infringes on colleges' educational mission and opens them up to lawsuits, Jeremy Young, director of state and higher education policy at PEN America, a free expression organization, told Higher Ed Dive at the time.

“It launches a series of investigations into universities for merely having a DEI office or promoting DEI, diversity work on their campus,” he said. “That, to us, is a pretty straightforward violation of the intellectual freedom of a university to promote ideas of all kinds on its campus."

Tyler Coward, lead counsel on government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that the order does not directly affect First Amendment-protected speech or academic instruction.

"The order has sort of avoided the constitutional pitfalls that we've been worried about in other orders and other legislation," he said, comparing it to a recent anti-DEI executive order from West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey that critics say restricts what educators can teach. However, Trump's language could be clearer, he said, and FIRE intends to continue monitoring the order and its enforcement.

Making good on a repeated campaign promise, Trump ordered a dismantling of all federal DEI programs on his first day in office.

The U.S. Department of Education confirmed Jan. 23 it would cut its DEI initiatives and purged all references to DEI from its guidance and communications. Agency employees who led DEI programming were put on paid leave, the agency said at the time.

Trump also ordered the secretaries of defense and homeland security to review the curriculum and instructors at the military academies under their purview to eliminate DEI initiatives. Those institutions are the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. The order comes as the first three institutions are facing lawsuits over their use of race-conscious admissions.

The new tenor at the federal level could have a trickle down effect on states. FIRE anticipates an uptick in state-level attention to DEI, in the form of both legislation and gubernatorial executive orders, Coward said.

"Republicans are definitely pursuing reforms in how DEI operates," he said. "That will be a common theme throughout this Congress and throughout the state legislative sessions."

The most wide ranging — and confusing — executive action so far came in the form of a two-page memo from the Office of Management and Budget.

On Jan. 27, OMB issued a memo freezing federal funding like grants and loans until agencies could prove via “comprehensive analysis” that recipients were in compliance with Trump's flurry of executive orders — including those against DEI.

OMB later said the memo wouldn’t impact student aid, but the remaining lack of detail ignited consternation among colleges — institutions that heavily rely on federal funding and often have DEI programs.

However, a federal judge issued a temporary stay minutes before the freeze went into effect, and the Trump administration rescinded the memo the next day. But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt asserted that the retraction only meant to circumvent the judge's ruling.

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented,” Leavitt posted on social media.

The rapid-fire changes and reversal makes the order's short-term impacts unclear, but the chaos encapsulates the uncertainty colleges are sure to face in 2025.

A different approach to Title IX

On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order declaring that the federal government would recognize only two sexes — male and female — based on an individual’s reproductive cells. The order directs federal agencies to use this definition to enforce laws, such as Title IX, the statute prohibiting sex-based discrimination at federally funded colleges and K-12 schools.

The order stands in stark contrast to policies of the previous administration. Biden's Education Department included protections for LBGTQI+ students in its final Title IX regulations released last year by barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. However, that rule was mired in litigation, and a federal judge struck it down nationwide earlier this month.

Trump’s order says that “sex” is “not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.’” It also says that federal funds should not be used to promote the notion that individuals can assess their own gender or that gender exists outside of a binary tied to sex.

The executive order aligns with the goals of Project 2025, a policy blueprint for Trump’s second term created by a coalition of conservative groups. Cathryn Oakley, senior director of legal policy at the Human Rights Campaign, said the groups behind Project 2025 have been fighting against LGBTQ+ equality for decades and promoting a Christian nationalist ideology.

“They believe that there is one correct way to be a man, and there is one correct way to be a woman,” Oakley said, adding that the order’s definition of two sexes is both scientifically and culturally incorrect. “The failure of this definition shows the failure of the ideology, which is to say that you cannot put human beings in two clear buckets with no edge cases.”

The order also doesn’t align with some existing case law.

In 2020, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board that found a school board had violated Title IX by barring a transgender student from men’s restrooms and making him use separate facilities.

In a similar case, Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District, a federal appeals court held in 2017 that “a policy that requires an individual to use a bathroom that does not conform with his or her gender identity punishes that individual for his or her gender non‐conformance, which in turn violates Title IX.”

Oakley argued that Trump overstepped his authority with elements of the executive order and predicted it will spur legal challenges.

“I would absolutely encourage folks to be careful, because what they may do in trying to comply with these orders, which really are outside the bounds of law, is getting themselves on the wrong side of case law,” Oakley said.

Jennifer Smith, co-chair of the law firm Franczek P.C.’s higher education practice, noted that the executive order also doesn’t align with some state laws. Illinois’ Human Rights Act, for instance, bars discrimination based on gender identity.

“Some of these things are irreconcilable and, at this point, it's a matter of weighing risks rather than a path of clear compliance,” Smith said.

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How 4 of Trump’s policy actions could impact higher education in 2025

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